Buy my Plot (Social Experiment)

[loopy777]

So, today I came up with an idea for a novel. The idea itself isn't important or relevant; I come up with an idea everyday for a book, including one notable departure from fiction for a tabletop picture-heavy hardcover about potato chip culture in America. However, what I did with the idea (the one from today, not the potato chip book) is what's interesting.

I did nothing with it. I'm not going to write it.

But it occurred to me that it's a good idea, and maybe someone would want to buy it from me.

But how would I sell it?

So, this is my experiment with selling an idea. I don't really expect anyone to want to buy it, but I was curious if the model I came up for the salesmanship would work. I invite you to pretend that you're an interested buyer, and tell me whether my pitch works, or if there's more information you would want to know before you make a decision and/or offer.

I'm not going to be sharing the idea for the novel itself, as that would be giving away my product for free, but I'm going to use it for this experiment so that we have a solid foundation. Ideally, we'll develop a model we can all use to sell ideas online, maybe even create an Idea Industry, and then we can all sit around on our computers all day touting our mystery "pleasure food" idea and then reveal "pizza wrapped in ham" after we've been paid by some dumb patsy. (Naturally, we'd have to worry about inflation and brand devaluation.) It's not that I dislike my day job, otherwise I might actually try writing this novel, but trading a real job for a not-real job without loss of income is the Great American Dream. (And all foreigners love American stuff, so I'm sure everyone else digs it, too.)


The Pitch

Characters: Main characters are one man and one woman. Both will be reusable at the end of the novel. An extended supporting cast can fit into the story easily, including rivals for both the man the woman, although the final adversary must arrive from outside the main setting. As many of the supporting characters as desired can be reused, and they all have spin-off potential.

Setting(s): Single location, of an age-old type that can work in any genre or world. It can be fitted to various cultures and geographic locations, and can scale to accommodate casts of widely varying sizes. It should be reusable at the end of the novel, and can serve as the common element in a series of otherwise unrelated novels.

Genre(s): A mix of Romance, Social Examination, and Western. Depending on the preference of the writer, each of these can be maximized or minimized to suit any taste. I, for example, would play up the Western aspect, but plenty of great stories could be told without it.

Length: This story can be told in one novel, but is too long for a short story. It could be broken up into a series of short stories, but is mainly designed for a single narrative. Sequels are a possibility for the main characters and world, but not in the same setting. Alternatively, a sequel could be told in the same setting with a new cast.

Themes: Prejudices, racial and/or cultural; Fish out of water; Learning to love; Strength from friendship; Overcoming social and/or economic adversity; Surviving being an outcast; Uniting to form a community; Sexual maturity/exploration (optional);

Audience (generalities based on market studies): Given the characters and general storyline, I can see this appealing heavily to female romantic fans who like exploring new cultures with a bit of action at the plot's climax. Depending how much of the Western aspect is incorporated, there's a strong possibility to hook in a heavy male audience, but in that case the Sexual theme would have to be downplayed, as erotic fiction does not sell well with men. Even without the Sexual theme, I do not see this working well for teen audiences, due to certain necessities of the setting; while teenagers are curious about sex, moral guardians would probably clamp down just based on the premise.


And so, my "customers," are you ready to bid, or do you need more info? Play along, now, no real money required.

Comments

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

(1/2)

Interesting idea, let me try to parse my thoughts on this by writing it out.

One real-life situation where you regularly see one person's plot being used by another is ghostwriting for franchises, as in this confession (http://www.kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2013-winter/selections/amy-boesky-656342/) of a Sweet Valley High ghostwriter who is now a professor of literature. (I think I read some of the books by her back in high school. I always suspected something like this was going on, given how the credit was "created by" Francine Pascal.) She describes how Pascal, the creator, gave the writers outlines and style guides which the writers wrote into final products, kind of like frames and parts being assembled into cars. In this context the plot is a factor of production, a means of creating products and not a final product in itself.

Of course, if you expand on the car parts metaphor you can come up with a market for plot as a component of story, along the line of parts being traded between hobbyists or businesses. It would be a product that's interesting for people who already have the skill to put it into a finished product, and so the market will be smaller market than the one for finished books, but that doesn't mean it can't exist.

Plot, however, is much more contingent than car parts. If you stick a sound engine into a car and hook it up right the car will run (or so I'm led to believe--I don't know a thing about cars), but turning a plot into a good story requires more than doing everything right by a technical manual. Even a small change in characters or setting could make an otherwise workable plot fly apart, which results in more work for the writer fixing what's broken. Even rigidly defined characters and setting aren't a complete antidote because really subtle details of writing could similarly result in the product going off spec.It would be as though adjusting a valve in the engine turned the car door purple or something, and what's more you could not predict this until it happened. The process is just too fluid and unpredictable.

Fundamentally the writer herself goes into the writing in a way that I don't see happening with, say, putting together cars. Obviously a dedicated car hobbyist or artisan is going to leave their mark on the cars they put together, but their style isn't going to be disruptive to the manufacture. Unlike in writing, the tiny details of a car hobbyist's personality and craft won't blow up the engine unless there was some defect or mistake.

This's why I can see plot changing hands mostly in a franchise setting where the individual quirks of the writers are suppressed in the interest of having a homogeneous product. There the outline acts more like a car engine because those disruptive influences are controlled. In the hobbyist or professional market for writing, on the other hand, individuality neither can nor should be suppressed because it's the whole point.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

(2/2)

That's probably why services are in far more demand than components in the writing market. When you look at the writing hobbyist "market" of fanfic (though money seldom changes hands, you can see approval and appreciation as a sort of currency here), components like ideas or parts of plot are abundant and are "free." In fact it's usually considered a favor to put labor into someone else's component and make it a finished product, such as writing a fic based on their preferred pairing. Services like fan art and beta-reading are sought out, and the artist or beta-reader is the one who gives the favor.

All this is not to say plot can't be sold. In fact I can see it working well, as long as you understand the nature of the product and the market. Pre-written plot could, for instance, be part of educational material on writing fiction. Working with preexisting plot could be an excellent way to learn about the writing process and how the different parts of story interact with each other. This would work especially well as part of a curriculum, offered together with teaching services. In fact part of the point of the exercise might be turning out completely different stories starting from the same plot, and learning the nature of creativity and individual voice in the process.

Another application might be for writers (including hobbyists) who are in a rut and want to try something different. Again, this would work best in conjunction with services, where the seller might provide consultation and guidance. I doubt the consultation would stop with plot, though, because of the interactive aspect I talked about above. Ultimately I think the service rendered would turn out to be editing services.

In short I can see this idea working if it's paired with a value-added service, given the nature of the product. I don't know how far you plan to run with this, but in the meantime thank you for giving me an opportunity to think through this issue. :)

[loopy777.livejournal.com]

See, that's where my expensive full-service plan comes in. XD

But seriously, good thoughts, and I think your car analogy is helpful (at least in so far as I don't know about cars either so we can be wrong together), but I don't think what I'm offering here is the "engine" to the car. I figured I was offering the blueprints to a specific kind of car. I will gladly describe what the assembled car will do, but I'm not going to share how it is made. Once the blueprints have been sold and delivered to the customer, they can use them to build the car, but they have the freedom to depart from those instructions. They can use different materials, or swap out the internal combustion engine for something they think would work better, or be more in line with the customer's own knowledge- a steam engine, perhaps, or an advanced piece of tech that runs on hydrogen battery cells.

To link that analogy back to the Idea I've developed, I think it's possible to turn the main female character into a male character. Naturally, the romance can still occur, but where I specifically wanted to use the female gender on that character to exploit/subvert stereotypes and stand in contrast to the main male character, another writer might want to shift things so that the shared gender of the two main characters highlights the contrasts. In that case, the plot could still work, and most of the themes would still apply with a little tweaking in the presentation.

Thus why I talked about all the components for the story, including characters, settings, themes, and so on, so that prospective "buyers" would be able to tell if they can use or adapt my product. I would explain to the final buyer how all the elements of the story I imagined interact and come together to produce the whole, and presumably that would be enough knowledge for the buyer to know how to use the "product" for their maximum benefit.

I think this differs from the Babysitters Club example because I'm not calling for a specific style, or for pre-established characters. The voice, the mannerisms, the history, all that would be defined by the writer. If anything, I'm simply giving a detailed description of the archetypes of the characters. Even the setting is meant to be defined by the writer. I could describe it to you right now in one word and you'd know what it was (kind of like, "casino," although that's not what it is in my example), but it could be translated into all kinds of wider worlds and feels (a glitzy space casino, a tawdry Wild West casino, an ostentatious Vegas casino).

In effect, I feel like I'm selling a LEGO set more than parts of a car. I give you the bricks and the instructions, but it's a LEGO set, so the whole idea is to bring as much creativity as possible, as well as your own collection of bricks. And that's where I'd trade in a brand name; not just anyone can produce a LEGO set, and even other manufactures capable of making knock-off bricks aren't LEGO (as I can personally attest, the plastic is much cheaper and softer).

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

This experiment would be worth it if only to see whether the writing process is more akin to your blueprint metaphor or my quantum-engine-that-turns-car-door-purple metaphor. XD I guess a lot would depend on the context, how detailed and technical the story frame is, and more.

A few questions: What kinds of buyers are you envisioning? Aspiring professionals who don't know where to get started on their big break, hobbyists looking to save some time, washed-out pros who want to break out of their ruts, writing educators? Is full confidentiality guaranteed, since in an ownership-obsessed culture there could be repercussions for using pre-made plot in professional work? Also, would you disclaim all possible intellectual property claims and make each product a one-sale deal, or do you hold onto some legal rights on the work such as resale rights?

[loopy777.livejournal.com]

I think the "Aspiring professionals who don't know where to get started on their big break" one is probably the best and most consistent bet. I mean, I'm sure you've seen any number of fanfic authors who have dreams of getting published and the drive to actually complete a novel, but don't really have an understanding of Story beyond the basic plot arc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure). And, as a reader of licensed fiction, I know that there are professionals who definitely do better when playing with the characters and settings of a popular and well-constructed franchise than they do making up their own stuff; buying my Plot would be like writing fanfic, only you get to claim that the characters are yours at the end!

I hadn't considered "washed-out pros who want to break out of their ruts," but that's actually another good idea. I don't think it would be a majority of the customers, but I think that's a good direction towards which to direct some marketing effort. The model would probably not be cost-efficient for educators and students, but perhaps it will be a cheap way to do an at-home education. You know, mix free online teaching with stuff like this as a way of getting a DIY creative writing education.

Legally, I think this would be work for hire stuff, and confidentiality will probably be a standard part of the contract. I wouldn't expect any rights or acknowledgement, unless the "service plan" concept was used and I provided additional Editor services. In that case, the contract could go all the way to specifying that I get co-writer credit, depending on what kind of work I put into it. The Plot wouldn't shared with the buyer until after the contract is signed, and it would be an explicitly case of "Let the Buyer Beware." If you don't like the Plot after you paid for it, tough luck.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

You've got your bases covered, it seems. One thing to consider: A big part of the "beware" part of "buyer beware" is research, and that's somewhat limited since the product won't be revealed until after the sale and word-of-mouth would be clandestine at best since a lot of buyers won't be raving (or ranting) openly about the product. I can imagine you tapping into a kind of underground economy of overworked and inspiration-starved writers, though, since social disapproval of getting creative help hasn't stopped the "ghost" market from prospering.

I mean, I hate the term ghostwriter anyway because it shows a fixation on rugged individualism in creativity and creative rights. People think the writer has to be able to do everything from conception to creation, but in truth the rugged individualist is a myth. Any decent book is the product of dozens if not hundreds of individuals' work, as honest writers will acknowledge, and that's before we even get into how all creators are part of culture and legacies without which they won't be able to create in any recognizable way.

It's the need to believe in the writer as sole creative genius that makes "ghosts" not only out of ghostwriters but also proofreaders, commenters and other vital helpers. Can't we just recognize that creativity is a highly distributed and social process and let the ghost be real? [/rant]

[loopy777.livejournal.com]

It's not even a problem limited to the book industry. Movies have all those credits, but none of those jobs are explained. Most people walk away from a movie thinking the director directed every scene, but it's not true. Even aside from secret guest directors like Stephen Spielberg on the opening sequence of the final Star Wars movie, you have all the second unit directors who get to mastermind various scenes for which the One True Director is too busy or doesn't have enough expertise. (One that was pointed out to me is that Peter Jackson didn't direct that first duel between Gandalf and Saruman in the first LOTR movie, where they hit each other with telekinesis.) The moneymakers need to have a brand name for everything, and that leads to the promotion of an "auteur" who is held up as the source of all good things.

That segues nicely into my next point, which is to address your question about how to actually promote and sell these ideas. Frankly, I don't think I'd be able to do it, professionally. I expect this would be something only big names like Stephen King- who already are a well known brand- could make work. The other possibility is to work with Lit Agents, get known to them, and have them refer me as a source of well-defined ideas to people who inquire about breaking into the industry. Since agents are increasingly forced to be editors for their clients, they might even welcome a mercenary third party who their clients could pay to do all that for them.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

The moneymakers need to have a brand name for everything, and that leads to the promotion of an "auteur" who is held up as the source of all good things.

An article I read recently that fascinated me recently, called What Is the Business of Literature? (http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2013/spring/nash-business-literature/?utm_source=Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=60c6d96fda-Newsletter&utm_medium=email), made that very point, that the author is historically a construct created for commercial reasons. The whole article is worth reading because the author argues very astutely that publishing is far from dead, and rather the game has changed because of lower entry barriers including plummeting publishing costs. I think his conclusion is sound, that publishing needs to be the business of creating culture rather than moving manufactured products. The question still remains, though--how should literature generate value, and therefore revenue?

I think markets in creativity like the one you're envisioning could be one answer. If we recognize that creation isn't the purview of a few gifted individuals who are set apart from the mass of humanity, but rather something that exists throughout society, and that it's collaborative and even collective in nature, the resistance to the idea of buying creative components would probably decrease. The author could still be useful as a brand name that brings recognition and controls risk, as in your example of Stephen King, but it needs to be recognized as such--a means to a commercial end. New commercial realities requires new constructs, and maybe some deconstruction, too.

[loopy777.livejournal.com]

SLUSH YES.

I waited on a response because I wanted to take the time to really read the heck out of that article and process what it had to say. Aside from its intelligent and punchy style, I'm really fired up for the notions it expresses and the way it got my brain considering the future of the publishing industry. I'm actually willing to concede that my idea for selling ideas may be completely wrong-headed.

See, I have more ideas than I could ever write in a lifetime, especially considering that I'll likely never be able to make that hobby pay for itself no matter how much effort I put into it. Traditional publishing routes don't play to my strengths, as I'd need to find an agent who could also be an editor, then if I managed to sell a novel to one of the big publishing houses, I'd need to take to new media to half the work of promoting the thing, and considering that I can't even get as many people to read my intricately plotted adventures as will click any random Tokka fluff story, that's obviously a losing proposition for me. Likewise, if I go through the new internet-based self-publishing routes, I'd have to do a full 100% of the promotion, and my chance of discovery would be even worse.

Of course, I could always just publish a novel because I want to, and not for any real expectation of profiting from it. We've discussed the benefits and pitfalls of this versus just sticking with fanfic, so there's no need to go over that here. But that still leaves me more ideas than I can do anything with, hence my speculation that I could sell ideas.

However, reading that article got me thinking about the notion of Authors, and the myriad of possibilities offered by small publishers, and it got me thinking. What if- instead of an Author- I started an Author Team?

(1/2)

[loopy777.livejournal.com]

In my vision, there would be a team of people, preferably friends, but the overriding concern is that they'd be creatively compatible. Most or all would be writers. Perhaps one is good with dialogue scenes. Perhaps one is good at fight scenes. Perhaps another is just really good at sticking to a set of themes and keeping the story on track. Each would have their own weaknesses, and hopefully the team approach would address that. The story would be made up as a team, and each member would have different writing assignments. One or two could serve as the primary writers, with another one or two serving as editors, but anyone in the team could try their handing at writing a portion.

But the team wouldn't just be limited to writing and editing. One or more members of the team would be able to handle the publishing process, formatting all final draft for submission to all the various digital publishing venues. You'd have one or more doing the promotion, playing up connections on Facebook and Twitter and the like, and maybe running a blog that the whole group could contribute towards. One person would be an artist and could put together a cover, or would simply have enough deviantArt friends that they could get someone appropriate to put together a cover.

Basically, it would be an Agile team (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_development) devoted to creating a book, from beginning to end. Perhaps the team is working on multiple books, but not everyone on the team is involved in both books. Perhaps I'm one of the two primary writers for one book, but only contributed the Idea (covered in the same detail as the Idea I was trying to sell up above) to a second book, and am merely going to edit that and a third book. The person doing the distribution could do all three books more easily than one at a time, and as success built, promoting each new book would become easier.

It would offer all the services of a big publishing house (even if it had to work harder and longer to get a hard copy on the shelves of book stores), and vastly superior to going it alone in the self-publishing scene.

And, instead of there being an Author's name under the title, there would simply be a team, just like a video game. And just like a video game, at the end are the full credits. Unlike Hollywood, the team identity would be given priority over the Auteur. That's what the brand would be built on. (Example: the video game development studio Valve. They run the whole process from start to finish, including their own digital distribution, and everyone knows that when you buy a Valve game, you're getting a certain standard of quality and production values, even if the game isn't your thing.)

Dang, I'm all fired up for this. If only I had a team of writing buddies I could bring together in my basement.

(2/2)

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

Ha, not a bad idea. The manga creative team CLAMP have been killing it for decades now, the same thing is feasible with writing--I don't even care if it's novels, YA books, franchise tie-ins, screenplays, graphic novels, it's all just content generation. If the team have marketing and promotion capabilities I'm pretty sure they'll be taking on indie authors as clients in no time and probably become a small, agile publishing house in addition to a writing team. Sounds pretty awesome!

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

Personally, I would not buy an idea for an original story. You came up with the idea because it interested you. Perhaps someone else is interested enough that it would speak to xem and xe would want to pour xyr heart and soul into it. How could anyone know before reading the idea?

I believe there is a difference between a good story and a story I should write. All stories that I should write are good, or else I shouldn't write them, but there are stories that I should just leave to others who will write them better and put more of themselves in. This is because there is more to a story than the things you describe offering to sell. There are often deep themes exploring important aspects of the world or the human condition. I don't want to buy your themes; I know my own, or will discover them. I don't know whether it's possible to make my themes work with your plot. I don't know whether I would like to write the themes you would put in. I do know that I could come up with as much of an idea as you describe on my own, and that coming up with the idea would be less than one percent of the work on a novel of average length. It might be some single-digit percentage of the work on a short story. Only in the very shortest lengths, such as drabbles, are ideas so much of the work that I can imagine anyone paying for one.

[loopy777.livejournal.com]

I get what you're saying, but I think you're generalizing your own feelings and experiences. By the same logic, anything that takes creative power away from an artist would never fly, so things like Paint-by-Number kits, Coloring Books, LEGO sets, instructions in Craft Kits, Sewing Templates and the like wouldn't sell, and yet lots of people buy such things. While I'm sure than an artist looking to express themself wouldn't be interested in buying my plots, I think it's more than possible that someone who just wants to write but has a hard time coming up with themes, character dynamics, and the like would be interested in outsourcing that work.

That's why in my pitch, I described the Mechanics of the story rather than the story itself. If the themes I listed appeal to the prospective buyer- speak to something they've been wanting to express but haven't found a way yet- then I think they'd be interested in buying my idea. Take me for example. I'm not artist, I'm just a computer programmer who likes to write as a hobby. I write fanfic, which is already using someone else's characters and world, and I've even accepted ideas from other writers; my current ongoing fanfic, "Retroactive," is based on an idea I got from someone else, and I'm having a blast with it.

So yes, I agree with you that an Artist would have no interest in this market. But the world of creators is much larger than the world of artists.

I appreciate the feedback, though. Overstepping the market and presenting this as something it's not could demonize the whole system.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, although I do think that LEGO sets allow a lot of creative freedom, especially if you mix and match. I feel like taking an idea that's suggested for your writing is different from paying for one before you hear it. Some ideas fit perfectly with the creative visions of artists who didn't come up with them, but I'm not sure I could tell whether an idea would work for me before hearing it.

Here's a thought that might or might not be analogous: I sometimes draw, and I sometimes play Paint-by-Numbers puzzles (nonograms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram)), and my reasons are completely different. It might be fun to challenge myself to write within the constraints of a premade plot, but I've never tried that.

The thing that I'm thinking about now, though, is that there's already a situation where one person comes up with the plot, themes and character dynamics and another does the writing, and in that situation, money changes hands the other way, from the Idea Person to the writer.

I'd be interested to see how it goes if you try this.

[loopy777.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't seriously expect to actually try to sell my plot. As I was discussing with lalunatique, the whole thing with keeping the actual product a secret pretty much mandates that the seller has a really well-regarded brand name. People might be skeptical of my selling a plot, rightfully, while Stephen King could probably sell one easily, since he's a pro with a huge record of success, and people familiar with his works can get an idea of his "product style" from having read his works.

I'd love to come up with a way to market the idea without such secrecy, but I just don't trust people enough. It could be that I'm overly paranoid, though.